Art History Lecture w/ Tom Richards - Landscape Pt. 1 - Symbols vs Facts

An Installment in the Art History related content on The FAA Collective Patreon

Dear Patrons,

This week we would like to present you with the first lecture of a three-part series given by Tom Richards, Assistant Director of The Florence Academy of Art, focusing on various dualisms within the broad genre of “landscape.” 

This first lecture Symbols vs. Facts introduces us to the series and begins with an invitation to consider how people have created art that reflects the world around them throughout time, from the cave paintings of Altamira, some of which are believed to be 20,000 years old, to 17th century drawings by Rembrandt. 

Throughout this lecture we are shown drawings, sculptures, prints, and paintings of the natural world as well as the natural world refracted through human touch such as urban spaces, designed gardens, and architectural spaces imagined and real. Diving deep into the contextual relationship artists and their contemporaries had with nature Richards expertly guides us through both the symbolic and imaginative aspects of landscapes in art along with the representational and factual elements that together, create pieces that speak to the complex affair we all have with the natural world, even today! From fear, awe, or curiosity; a desire to understand, use, and domesticate; or a desire to rejoice in its beauty, landscapes in artwork reveal much about the people who made them.

We hope you thoroughly enjoy this lecture and remind you to keep an eye out on the next installments in the series to be released soon!

Tom Richards is Assistant Director of the Florence Academy of Art, Principal Instructor at the academy, and a working artist based in the UK and Italy. 

To learn more about Tom and his work please visit:

Instagram: www.instagram.com/tominflorence

Website: www.tawrichards.com

FAA Gallery: www.florenceacademyofart.com/alumni-gallery/tom-richards

If you would like to further research the works from the lecture we have selected details on artists and artworks below, in the order presented in the lecture:

HRH The Duke of Edinburgh painting on the deck of HMY 'Britannia' 1956-57 by Edward Seago (1910-74).

Cave painting at Altamira, Spain.

Hellenistic and Roman frescoes at the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme in Rome and the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples.

The Dream 1910, oil on canvas, Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA  by Henri Rousseau.

Ceiling frescoes in the Museo di Palazzo Grimani in Venice.

Ceiling by Correggio in the Camera di San Paolo in the San Paolo former convent in Parma, Italy.

Fin Garden in Kashan, Isfahan Province, Iran.

The Annunciation by Fra Angelico (c 1395-1455), located at the Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

The Fall of Man 1628-1629, a copy after Titian by Peter Paul Rubens, located at the Museo del Prado, Spain.

Perseus and Andromeda c. 1554-1556 by Titian located in the Wallace Collection, London, UK.

Paradiesgärtlein 1410-1420 by Upper Rhenish Master, located in the Städel Museum, Frankfurt, Germany.

Pages by the Limborg brothers in The Belles Heures of Jean de France, duc de Berry 1405–1408/1409

Procession of the Magi in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi in Florence (1459-60) by Benozzo Gozzoli.

Adoration of the Magi and predella panels by Gentile da Fabriano located in The Uffizi Galleries, Florence, Italy.

Lamb of God in the Ghent Altarpiece by Jan and Hubert van Eyck, Saint Bavo Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium.

Page from the Turin-Milan Hours by “Hand G”.

Paintings by Albrecht Dürer.

Drawing by Leonardo da Vinci.

Drawing by Rembrandt van Rijn.

Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian by Piero del Pollaiolo, National Gallery, London, UK.

The Duke and Duchess of Urbino Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza by Piero della Francesca, located at The Uffizi Galleries, Florence, Italy.

St. Francis in Ecstasy by Giovanni Bellini.

Painting by Bartolomeo Montagna juxtaposed with one by Giovanni Bellini.

Madonna and Child by Giovanni Bellini, located in the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, Italy.

Supper at Emmaus by Titian, located in The Louvre Museum, Paris, France.

Saint Jerome in Penitence by Titian, located in the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, Italy.

Adoration of the Magi by Hieronymus Bosch, located at the Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

The Gloomy Day by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.

The Preaching of St. John the Baptist by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary.

Drawing by Rembrandt.

Silk Screen at the National Museum in Tokyo, Japan.

Landscape print by Rembrandt.